Marching on Bethlehem
by Adara-chan67
Summary: Dean contemplates his deal, and finally starts to figure out what it could mean for his brother. Angsting Dean and some Limp!Sam.


_Disclaimer: De Boyz aren't mine. I am but one of the many who wish they could put something else here for a change._

_Characters: Sam 'n Dean_

_Setting: Post…well, everything, actually_

_Warnings: Dean angst. And a bit of limp!Sam. But who doesn't love that?_

* * *

_Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;  
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,  
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere  
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;  
The best lack all conviction, while the worst  
Are full of passionate intensity.  
Surely some revelation is at hand;  
Surely the Second Coming is at hand._

_-_Slouching Toward Bethlehem, _W.B. Yeats_

* * *

Marching on Bethlehem

**You know, a dream is like a river,**

**Ever changin' as it flows,**

**And a dreamer's just a vessel**

**That must follow where it goes.**

**Trying to learn from what's behind you**

**And never knowing what's in store**

**Makes each day a constant battle**

**Just to stay between the shores.**

The night after Sam died, Dean couldn't sleep.

He supposed it was a perfectly natural thing, what with everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours, and so he didn't try to stave off the restlessness and lay wide awake, staring into the abyss.

In the other bed, Sam slept, indulging in his usual sprawl and recuperating from his not-quite-healed injury, proving that Dean had indeed been right in saying, "Trust me, Sammy, you _will_ be able to sleep tonight. You don't think you will, but trust me, it'll all catch up with you."

It had, and now Sam slept, and Dean watched him, doing internal back flips at each rise and fall of his brother's chest.

He wasn't thinking about the deal. He hadn't thought about it since he'd once again asked for a double room at the motel and felt like everything had fallen back into place at last.

It wasn't even so much that he was _trying_ not to think about it. It honestly hadn't occurred to him, because he simply didn't regret it and so he wouldn't dwell on it.

Sam was alive and breathing and _with him_, and so he had no regrets.

**I will sail my vessel**

'**Til the river runs dry.**

**Like a bird upon the wind,**

**These waters are my sky.**

**I'll never reach my destination**

**If I never try,**

**So I will sail my vessel**

'**Til the river runs dry.**

Being damned was an interesting thing.

Dean decided this after long and arduous contemplation. He still couldn't put a name to what he felt about going to hell, but he had decided that whatever it was, it was interesting.

To Dean, being damned was breaking all the rules. It was eating pie and drinking beer for breakfast. It was making the Impala go as fast as ever she cold and keeping the music at a decibel level rivaling the Beatles at Shea Stadium. It was picking up as many girls as would go home with him. It was acting on nay whim his brain came up with, regardless of the consequences.

But it was also putting on a mask every day. It was using humor to hide. It was being scared all the time and lying about it. And most of all, it was leaving Sammy behind and putting him through a kind of private hell of his own.

In short, being damned was sucking beyond all measure, and laughing about it.

**Too many times we stand aside**

**And let the waters slip away**

'**Til what we put off 'til tomorrow**

**Has now become today.**

**So don't you sit upon the shoreline**

**And say you're satisfied.**

**Choose to chance the rapids**

**And dare to dance the tide.**

Almost unconsciously, Dean began counting up "lasts." Last birthday. Last April Fools. Last Halloween. Last anniversaries of all the deaths—Mom, Jim, Caleb, Dad…

That much, at least, was a relief to let go of.

But what wasn't a relief was finding out that what they say is true—that you don't realize what you're going to miss until you don't have it anymore.

And so Dean began counting up "no mores" too. No more driving the Impala, that easily topped the list. No more Metallica or Zeppelin or AC/DC. No more hunting. No more teasing Sammy. No more calling Sammy "Sammy."

The "no mores" were much more depressing than the "lasts," all in all.

Listing them, Dean finally—_finally_—began to be as angry at himself as Sam was, and it became harder and harder to paste the smile on every morning.

He kept doing it, though, his words to Gordon all that time ago still sticking through it all.

_Keep your game face on._

**I will sail my vessel**

'**Til the river runs dry.**

**Like a bird upon the wind,**

**These waters are my sky.**

**I'll never reach my destination**

**If I never try,**

**So I will sail my vessel**

'**Til the river runs dry.**

Dean dreamed more often now, but the dream was always the same, so he wasn't entirely sure it counted as more than one. Sam, expert on dreams and nightmares, would certainly know how one should keep count, but asking him would have revealed the fact that he _had_ the dreams, so Dean left it alone.

In the dream, the world was ice and fire. The two were so perfectly blended that it was impossible to separate them, and when they branded him it was equally impossible to tell whether the burn was hot or cold. His dream-self felt the pain, though of course _he_ didn't, and it made his real-self want to scream in pain and terror. He never did figure out how he managed to stay silent in sleep.

But worse than the pain—far worse—was the loneliness. _That_ hurt more than the fire, more than the ice, more than anything should. He'd been abandoned—Sam had abandoned him,_ failed _him, and even as his real self was disgusted to be thinking that way, his dream-self felt completely justified.

So, yeah, all in all, Dean felt he could certainly do without these random pre-expeditions into hell. They made him even more afraid, and he was on rather shaky ground as it was, and privately felt that he had quite enough to be getting on with already.

But it turned out that the world wasn't quite finished screwing with him yet, because Sam's birthday this year—_the last one I'll get to spend with him—_ended up passing in that horrible haze they call a _medical emergency_.

**There's bound to be rough waters**

**And I know I'll take some falls,**

**But with the good Lord as my captain,**

**I can make it through them all.**

It was supposed to be a simple salt-and-burn, but nothing was ever simple anymore, so it wasn't too surprising that everything went wrong from minute one and Dean woke up in a hospital bed with his ribs taped and his head bandaged and was told that Sam was in surgery and in questionable condition.

And to make a really bad situation into one that truly _sucked_, they wouldn't even let Dean up. So he couldn't pace, and he couldn't hit anything, and basically all he _could_ do was lay in bed and panic.

The wait seemed interminable, but then that was only to be expected. But Dean _really_ got worried when the doctor who came to discharge him _still_ had no word, and that was really what led him to the admittedly desperate maneuver of refusing to move from his bed until someone told him _something_.

Using such tactics actually yielded results, surprisingly enough, and after a time someone came with a sad smile and a "we're doing the bed we can" and an assurance that Dean would know something the moment they did.

Dean kept his end of the bargain and surrendered the bed, but then quite calmly moved to a chair in the hallway and sat down gingerly, deliberately folding himself into a position that said louder than words that he wasn't leaving without his brother.

The nurses couldn't figure out what to do with him, and the doctors had more important things to worry about than some former patient who may or may not have been crazy and who really wasn't causing any trouble, so after a time they simply left Dean there and ignored him.

By the time night had fallen and a tired-looking doctor in scrubs came to tell him that Sam was stable and would be good as new in a couple of months, barring complications, Dean had moved from blind fear to prayer, and as he got to his feet to follow the guy, he began to review all the wild, half-formed promises that now stood between him and God, swearing up and down that he _would_ keep them. Period. End of sentence.

He hadn't lost Sam again after all, and keeping his promises was suddenly looking very, very easy.

**I will sail my vessel**

'**Til the river runs dry.**

**Like a bird upon the wind,**

**These waters are my sky.**

**I'll never reach my destination**

**If I never try,**

**So I will sail my vessel**

'**Til the river runs dry.**

"Sam, stop scratching," Dean said irritably, reaching over to deftly remove Sam's hand from his bandages yet again.

"Damn it, Dean, do you have _any_ idea how annoying these stitches are?"

"I know," Dean replied calmly, having, of course, been a victim of the things several times.

Sam glowered at him. "Then do you have any idea how annoying _you_ are?"

"I know that, too." Dean grinned winsomely. "But you love me anyway, right?"

"More than anything," Sam said waspishly, with enough well-placed inflection to lend less-embarrassing mockery to words that were absolutely true nonetheless. As he spoke, he reached for the bag of Doritos Dean had open on the table between their beds.

Dean started to lean over before he could stop himself, and Sam sat back with a handful of chips and scowled at him. "Dean, come _on._"

"What?" Dean asked, doing his best to sound innocent.

"Stop _hovering_! You're driving me insane!"

"I'm not—"

Sam raised one eyebrow, daring Dean to finish that sentence.

"Well, okay, so maybe I am," Dean amended reluctantly. "But I wouldn't have to if you would just stop moving around so much."

"All I did was get some Doritos, Dean! I've barely gotten out of this bed since we checked in!"

"You've only been out of the hospital three days," Dean pointed out. "You're supposed to be _resting_."

"Did you not here me _just say_ that I haven't gotten out of bed in that time—well, except to head for the bathroom, and you don't _really_ want to stop me from doing _that_, now, do you?"

"…Touché."

"I'm gonna be _fine_, Dean. I've told you, Dr. Packard told you, and ten or twelve nurses told you. I'm okay and I'm gonna _keep_ being okay, so you can relax, all right?"

"No, not all right. Really freakin' far from all right," Dean snapped, and even he was surprised at the sudden anger in his tone.

"Dude, what is _wrong_ with you?" Sam asked after a moment of silence.

Dean wanted very much to shrug the question off with one of his patented shows of sarcasm, but that would have violated one of his new promises, and so he had to answer.

"Look," he said quietly. "You were close this time, Sam. I don't think anyone actually told you _how_ close. You were incredibly lucky, and I don't want you fooling around with that."

"Oh," Sam said. "Well, I'm sorry I worried you. But I think there's more to it than that. Isn't there?"

"It's gonna make me sound like an ass," Dean warned.

Sam shrugged. "Well, luckily I'm used to that."

Dean couldn't even muster the energy to roll his eyes. Instead he leaned back against the headboard of his bed and closed his eyes, suddenly feeling very tired.

"Okay, it's like this. Our job is dangerous. Obviously. But lately, it seems like you're always the one who draws the short straw."

"You're pretty banged up this time, too, in case you didn't notice."

"I have a concussion and a couple of cracked ribs. You have a load of stitches to keep your insides from becoming your outsides, pins holding the bones in your leg in position, and an appointment with a physical therapist every week for a month and a half. And that's not the point, anyway."

"You have one, then?"

"Ha. Freakin'. Ha. The _point_ is that…well, I watch out for you. You know that."

"Al too well. And I think we've proven I could use the help," Sam added wryly, looking down at his leg, propped up on pillows, and gesturing to his bandaged chest.

"Exactly. You clearly can't be trusted to keep yourself out of trouble." Dean chuckled to take any possible sting off the words, but as usual Sam saw right through him.

"And you're thinking that when you go, I won't be able to keep myself alive."

"…Yeah. See? I told you it would make me sound like an ass."

Sam was silent for a long time, but he didn't look angry, and finally he spoke.

"You're right."

Dean stared at him. That was _not_ where he'd pictured this conversation going.

"It's true. I'm not exactly great at staying out of trouble. You're pretty good at doing it for me, though, so I never really needed to learn."

"But that raises a problem," Dean pointed out. "I mean, since I'm—"

"Currently, or soon to be, headed for hell," Sam agreed, with an admirable attempt at calm. "That _is_ a problem, especially since I'm pretty sure I won't be able to learn to take care of myself quick enough to stay alive."

"Stop it."

"Just stating facts."

"Well, I don't exactly have a choice in this, ya know."

"And neither do I."

"Then…what do we do?"

Sam shrugged. "I can only see one solution. You'll just have to get over this whole demon deal thing and live forever."

_Damn it, Sam, don't you see how much I wish that was possible?_

But despite all this, there were things that hadn't changed still, and Sam was still going to drop dead if Dean tried to get out of his deal. It simply wasn't going to happen, ever.

"Maybe I should, Sammy. Maybe I should."

**Yes, I will sail my vessel**

'**Til the river runs dry.**

'**Til the river runs dry.**

* * *

_Author's Note: ...I have nothing to add. Huh. Weird. Well, anyway, review, please!_


End file.
